ClickUp not clicked? 5 limitations of ClickUp for bookkeepers - Pixie
Have you tried using ClickUp but it just hasn't clicked? Here are 5 limitations of ClickUp for bookkeepers
Over the last few years, ClickUp for bookkeepers has gained popularity as a tool to keep track of tasks & deadlines.
Maybe you’ve seen other people raving about ClickUp in Facebook communities, but when you checked it out, it just didn’t make sense?
Maybe you’re just getting started with ClickUp, but you're worried about how long the set-up is taking and whether it's overcomplicating things for your team?
Or perhaps you’ve already invested months into getting ClickUp to work for your bookkeeping firm, but it just hasn’t clicked…
If any of these ring true for you, then perhaps ClickUp isn’t the right tool for your firm.
Here are 5 limitations of ClickUp for bookkeepers and why it might not be the best choice...
- ClickUp isn’t built for bookkeepers
- The setup takes time (and isn’t ready out of the box)
- It can be too detailed for what you need
- Limited email integration (and no automated client reminders)
- No CRM for your client information
Let's explore them in some more detail...
1. ClickUp isn’t built for bookkeepers
There’s no doubt that ClickUp is a great project management tool for various business types. But one of the limitations of ClickUp for bookkeepers is that it wasn’t built for the bookkeeping community.
ClickUp is similar to Asana for bookkeepers in that it’s predominantly a project management tool (with lots of extra bells and whistles).
This means that:
- The structure is based around ‘Projects’ and not ‘Clients’ (see point #5)
- Future feature releases may be relevant to bookkeepers, but there’s no way to know. This means it is stuffed with features you won’t use, which make the app more complicated than it needs to be (see point #3)
- Support will be centred around general business use, and they might not understand the nuances of how you work with your clients and what you’re trying to achieve
- Ready-made templates and resources specifically for bookkeepers are few and far between, which means you either have to create yourself or buy them (see point #2)
There’s a lot to be said for picking something that has been built specifically for the needs of bookkeeping firms. This leads to the next point....
2. Setting up ClickUp for bookkeepers isn’t functional right out of the box
ClickUp provides a guided walkthrough and several training videos to help you set up your workspace. That said, the training isn’t 100% geared towards setting up ClickUp for bookkeepers and bookkeeping firms.
Many bookkeepers find themselves having to attend training webinars and courses or purchasing templates from consultants to get their workspace set up correctly. It’s great that these resources are available, but this comes at an extra cost to you and might not be as affordable as you’d like.
As a busy bookkeeping firm owner, you’re probably looking for something that you can get up and running as quickly as possible with freely available workflow templates and training.
Yes, there will always be some time commitment needed and some learning to any app, but ideally, you want a practice management tool that comes as out-of-the-box as possible to minimise disruption and help you and your team start working as quickly as possible.
3. ClickUp can be too detailed (and overwhelming) for what you need
ClickUp is full of features, views, and actions you can do.
This is great if you plan on using them all, but sometimes ClickUp for bookkeepers can be too detailed and, therefore, a little overwhelming for bookkeeping workflows.
When apps have lots of bells and whistles that you don’t need or use, they can end up causing confusion and make navigating around the app more challenging.
Your experience very much depends on what you need the app to do. If you’re looking for something to assign recurring tasks, track your dates and deadlines, and send automated reminders to your clients, then there are more straightforward tools available.
4. ClickUp Email is limited (and can’t send automated client reminders)
ClickUp recently released their email ClickApp, allowing you to send and receive emails directly inside your ClickUp workspace.
This is a step in the right direction, but as it stands the email integration has some limitations for bookkeeping firms.
Whilst you can set up email templates, there is currently no way to set these up to send automatically and request clients to send missing information. This is often one of the biggest challenges for bookkeeping firms, and being able to automate information collection can save you tons of time and frustration.
Another limitation is that you can only integrate one email account on the free workspace version. That’s fine if you and your team all use a shared email inbox, but if you all have separate email addresses and individually email the same clients, it’s going to cost you more money to add the additional emails.
The final limitation of managing email in ClickUp for bookkeeping firms is that although you can send and receive emails, you can’t manage your entire email inbox in the app. This means that you’ll still need to spend time changing between apps to manage email, which can add up to a lot of wasted time.
5. There is no CRM for bookkeepers
As well as keeping track of your clients tasks, deadlines, and emails, you also need somewhere to store their key information.
This could be their contact information, address, reference numbers, passwords, key dates, schedule of services, notes, and everything else in between.
In ClickUp, there is no client record feature where you can have a single view of all of this for your clients. This means you’ll probably have to store some of this information in another app, which again impacts your productivity.
When you and your team are busy and looking for answers, it helps to have everything you need in one place. It becomes your single source of truth.
Is ClickUp the right tool for your bookkeeping firm?
Despite the success that many firms seemingly have, there are some key limitations when it comes to using ClickUp for bookkeepers.
- ClickUp wasn’t built for bookkeepers
- The set-up takes time (and doesn’t work out of the box)
- It can be too detailed for what you need
- Limited email integration (and no automated client reminders)
- No CRM for your client information
As a busy bookkeeping firm owner, choosing the right app is an important decision and one that you want to get right to avoid wasted time and frustration. With the right tool in place, you can get setup quickly, reduce the overwhelm and brainache of tracking tasks and deadlines and finally scale up your business with you and your team all working from one central hub.
If you’re looking for a simple, flexible, and easy-to-use tool to help you keep track of your tasks, deadlines, clients, workflows and team, then see why other small bookkeeping teams are making the switch to Pixie.
With ready-made workflow templates, a complete 2-way email integration (including those handy auto-reminders!), and a built-in CRM, it’s the one practice management app designed for busy bookkeeping firms like yours. Find out more here.
About the author
Celso Pinto
A Portuguese expat in London, Celso founded Pixie after learning first-hand about the challenges faced by small accountancy and bookkeeping practices. A product-focused leader with over 20 years experience in the software industry, at Pixie you'll frequently find him listening to customers and distilling their feedback into the product and go-to-market strategy.